Wearing Your Heart Around Your Neck

Fashionable Ties Are Designed To Do Good, Not Just Look Good

March 20, 1997|By Charles M. Madigan, Tribune Staff Writer.

Wear your heart around your neck?

Exactly.

Thanks to something called cause-related marketing, it is now possible to mix big doses of compassion, silk and fashion, tie a good knot in it and put it all out there in place of that most traditional male accouterment, the deadly conservative business tie.

People have been pushing all kinds of cause-related merchandise for years, from Prairie Home Companion T-shirts that supported National Public Radio to Smithsonian neckties and scarves.

But visit any men's department in any good department store, from Sears to Field's to Bloomingdale's to Lord & Taylor, and what becomes apparent right away is that ties have become an attractive and apparently popular way of marrying social cause and fashion statement.

Sears has Gilda's Ties and Scarves, with a portion of the proceeds going to help Gilda Radner's legacy, Gilda's Club, which is aimed at providing moral support and help to cancer victims and their families.

Grateful Dead ties, in themes that match some of the band's more memorable songs and venues, guarantee a contribution to a summer camp.

Save the Children ties, designed and produced by Salant Menswear Group in New York, mean the buyer has taken a small whack at the problems that plague children around the world.

Much of this got off the ground in 1992 the way that many good things have started over the years, with the now departed Grateful Dead head Jerry Garcia.

Irwin Sternberg, co-founder of Stonehenge Ltd. in New York, went to visit a Garcia art exhibit in Greenwich Village and immediately recognized the tie-design potential in the artwork and the merchandising potential in the long lines waiting to see the exhibit.

Some talk happened and then some time passed and ultimately J. Garcia ties started moving into the marketplace, with some of the proceeds headed toward the arts institute Garcia attended in San Francisco as a child. It became a very successful business venture.

That begat other connections for Stonehenge, a small, specialty tie-maker that was experiencing some hard times before the cause-related tie came onto the scene. The market for ties was going soft, says Sternberg, and the cause connection was just what it needed for a big revival.

Stonehenge is now the home of the creatively designed tie, with everything from art to science providing the grist for its products.

Ties featuring electron-microscopic images of a range of substances are so popular that some of the revenues collected by Stonehenge make their way to the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Flordia State University.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving profits from Stonehenge's "Cocktail Ties" series, a stunning collection based on the actual molecular designs found in cocktails. MADD balked at the idea at first, but embraced the plan after Sternberg noted the product would be "The only way to tie one on before driving."

Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore is the beneficiary of the proceeds from the sale of Jos. A. Bank Clothiers' "Miracle Collection," a series of Stonehenge ties based on microscopic images of eight "miracle drugs" used to treat life-threatening or chronic illnesses in children.

The Chicago Collection, another Stonehenge specialty, is sold exclusively by Marshall Field's stores and is based on the molecular structure of various Chicago landmarks, Water Tower limestone, Wrigley Field ivy and Chicago-style pizza among them.

So far, the Chicago Historical Society has collected some $20,000 from the sale of Chicago Collection ties.

Sternberg said the company also has a Ties for Tibet collection based on patterns found in traditional Tibetan rugs. Exiled Tibetans benefit from the sale of those ties.

Where the market for all of this ends is an open question at this point.

But Sternberg says this shift in retail sales is another sign that in a very competitive marketplace, it doesn't hurt to have a little something extra to offer, provided it looks good and is marketed well.